


Changes [Time To Face The Strange]

by megzseattle



Series: The Serpent and The Seagull [7]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Engaged, Established Relationship, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Snake Crowley (Good Omens), snek stories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-08-28
Packaged: 2020-09-26 03:03:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20382616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/megzseattle/pseuds/megzseattle
Summary: Image bygoodomensficrecommendationson tumblrIn which Crowley and Aziraphale decide that they better introduce their pet Frederick to their true forms, and Frederick brings on the melodrama.





	1. The Big Reveal(s)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _I thought we could all use a little light-hearted break from relationship stuff and focus on Frederick for a while. Enjoy! _  
.  
.

“Did you know,” Crowley said one day, looking up from his phone as they sprawled on the couch with their legs entwined, “that king snakes are named that because they tend to kill and eat other snakes?”

Aziraphale looked up from his book and wrinkled his nose. “Well that’s unsettling,” he said. 

“Also they have the strongest constrictor strength of any snake.” Crowley read from his screen. “Really? Huh. That’s how they do it – they squeeze so hard they can stop the heart of something much bigger than them. Here, look at this video of a king snake just up and eating a snake twice its size.” 

He held the screen out so the angel could see it, but Aziraphale frowned in distaste and pushed it away, not liking to think about his friendly little pet that way. 

“Why exactly are you sharing this information?” he asked, confused.

Crowley looked thoughtful. “It’s just – I was wondering what would happen if Frederick saw me in my snake form.”

Aziraphale peered at him over the top of his glasses. “Well, he’d hardly be able to eat you.”

“No, I know that. I just wonder if he’d be frightened or if it would be okay.” He thought for a minute. “We should probably introduce him to that side of me at some point, so we don’t scare him half to death if he ever comes across me, you know?”

Aziraphale put his book down. “You might have a point. He’s bound to find you sometime in snake form, with winter coming up and the shop getting colder.” Crowley was inclined to spend more time in snake form in the winter, as it was just easier to conserve body heat when he could curl up in a tight ball near a heat source. He also tended to revert to snake form whenever he was especially confounded, cross, overly tired, or being asked to share his feelings at moments when he didn’t want to. Aziraphale found these reactions, in sequence, endearing, irritating, adorable, and infuriating. 

“He hasn’t seen either of us with wings, either,” Crowley pointed out, interrupting the angel’s line of thought. “Could be in for a series of surprises, our young Frederick.” 

“All right, I’ll think it over,” Aziraphale said. “We need to proceed carefully but you’re probably right that we need to do something about this soon.”

++

Aziraphale began trying to lay the ground work with Frederick. He presented him with a carefully-pulled feather from one of his wings, one day. The snake flickered his tongue and scented it with some interest for a moment, then tried to eat it. He swallowed it down, laid still for a moment, and then vomited it back up with a sound that sound like *hrgk*. 

THANKS SO MUCH FOR THAT, Frederick thought grumpily at Aziraphale. The snake glared balefully at him for a moment, then tunneled under his bedding material. 

“That could have gone better,” Aziraphale muttered. 

They tried again later with one of Crowley’s feathers, a black secondary one he'd saved from a molt. Frederick, now suspicious of feather-shaped objects, scented it from further away and then crawled into his cardboard tube, watching it suspiciously. He’d learned that these things had a mind of their own, even if they smelled comfortingly of his two large pets. 

“He’s not getting the idea,” Crowley said. “We’re just going to have to show him.” 

++

The next time, they pulled out the glass vivarium and placed it, with Frederick tucked securely inside, on the middle of the office desk. 

Crowley sat at the desk chair next to him and tapped the glass a little to get Frederick’s attention. “Are you ready? You need to watch now,” he said quietly, laying one hand in front of the glass case in a manner he hoped was comforting. “Watch Aziraphale.”

WHAT NOW? Frederick moaned, irritated at yet another interruption to his nap schedule. 

He unwillingly lifted his head and pinned both the pointy and the fluffy creature with his disapproving gaze, then prepared to go back to sleep. He had almost succeeded in resettling when suddenly, he picked up on a strange shift in the air of the room, almost like an electric current, and the background of the room behind his large, fluffy friend shimmered briefly as Aziraphale concentrated on manifesting his wings into the physical plane. 

With a sudden pop, there they were. Glorious, huge, alabaster wings, held carefully behind him in a nonthreatening stance. Aziraphale watched as Frederick, who was most definitely paying attention now, uncoiled slowly and moved as far away to the other side of the glass container as he could.

“Frederick,” Aziraphale said, moving slowly to come kneel before the container. “It’s still me. I’m an angel, that’s all. Not a bird of prey.”

Frederick hissed quietly and looked unconvinced. _What in the blazes is an angel_, he thought to himself. His limited experience of the world had contained no mention of this concept. 

“Let’s try just hanging about for a bit with your wings out,” Crowley said. “Maybe he’ll get used to it and you can take him out for a closer look.”

Frederick watched the two of them walk into the kitchen area to make tea, and he pondered. He’d always known there was something strange about these two – there had always been a hint of feathers in both of their scent profiles, and he’d never been quite sure why. So, his lovely, kind owner was actually a gigantic bird? Or part bird? Either way, if there was one thing a snake of his size knew it was that he was no match for an avian of that size, and he was not at all sure that he liked this development. 

In Frederick’s world, there were two truths: large snakes ate small birds, and large birds ate small snakes. End of story. Period. Finito. And yet, he couldn’t find it quite in himself to be afraid of his owner. He’d always been so kind. 

The dark one came back a while later and reached in to pull him out of his container. Frederick hissed dramatically and made his displeasure known, but ultimately allowed it. He took him over to the table where Aziraphale was sitting and, holding the snake carefully, let him take a good look at the wings and scent them to his heart's content. 

Aziraphale concentrated on radiating as much love and peace as he could at the little creature, and soon enough the snake uncoiled a little and accepted a few pets from his owner. 

HEY YOU KNOW WHAT? I DON’T LIKE IT. Frederick thought at them both, but as it didn’t seem like Aziraphale was inclined to eat him, he supposed he could get used to it. 

He was, they all noted, much happier when Aziraphale put his wings away. 

“Better not let him see you in your true form any time soon,” Crowley murmured that night. “Four wings and all those eyes? You’ll give the poor little guy nightmares.” 

“Indeed,” Aziraphale agreed. “That can probably be avoided, for the most part.”

++

Frederick the snake was having a very nice autumn, thank you very much. Things had been very calm for the last few months since he’d pulled his disappearing act and startled the two supposed grownups into slightly better behavior, and to their credit they’d been much less prone to idiocy lately. Frederick had watched approvingly from his perch nearby as they exchanged rings and acted ridiculously sappy about the whole thing. He didn't understand what the fuss about a couple lumps of metal was all about, but in general he thought anything that made the two of them less likely to bicker was worth encouraging. And when they were feeling sappy, they tended to extend that pleasantness to Frederick through a surfeit of treats and long naps in the sun. 

All in all, it had worked out rather well. 

After Aziraphale’s reveal, Frederick noted that his fuzzy owner was taking care to spend a bit more time with him, which was nice. Aziraphale had always been the warmest body in the house, and although he loved his heating pad, nothing really beat curling up with the fuzzy one for keeping a snake loose and happy. He basked in the attention and tried not to think any further about his pet’s dual nature. Some things were best ignored. 

It was, he thought, the most sensible approach. 

++

A few days later, they decided it was Crowley’s turn to reveal his wings. Aziraphale sat on the couch with Frederick curled up in his lap, stroking the snake gently while he mostly napped.  
“Frederick, wake up pay attention now,” Aziraphale said, booping him gently on the nose to wake him up. "Crowley needs to show you something." 

OH FOR FUCK’S SAKE, WHAT DO YOU TWO WANT THIS TIME? Frederick thought at them. Frederick had for several months now been listening closely to the pointy one and was picking up on quite a wide variety of curse words, which he practiced assiduously at night while his companions slept. He was rather proud of how well he was doing with them. 

Crowley got a strange look on his face for just a second. "Did you hear something?" he asked Aziraphale. 

"No," the angel said, looking at him levelly. "You all right, there?"

Crowley nodded his assent and got back to the task at hand. He frowned in concentration, while the angel made sure Frederick was watching. 

There was a _whoomp_ sound of displaced air and, suddenly, the pointy one was unfolding large, black wings behind him. 

HE’S A CROW??? Frederick shrieked. OH THAT EXPLAINS *SO* MANY THINGS. 

Crows, he thought with the inborn knowledge of all snake-kind, were nothing any intelligent snake tried to eat. They were smart and ruthless fighters, loyal in a way that caused their loved ones to band together to help them if they were under attack, and lived to cause trouble. They cackled with their own twisted sense of humor that no one else could really understand, and they were messy and annoying. 

That seemed about right, he thought, for what he knew of the pointy one. 

Also, luckily, they tended not to hunt snakes. 

Frederick eyed Crowley with a sense of grudging respect, and nodded his head a little in acceptance. Better a crow, who, yes, was crazy but was _predictable_ crazy, then a big giant seagull. No one could tell what a seagull might do next. 

FINE, he thought at them both, beyond annoyed. I CAN DEAL WITH THIS. REALLY GLAD THIS IS ALL OUT IN THE OPEN. CAN WE STOP WITH THE BIG REVEALS NOW? ANYONE WANT TO TURN INTO A FREAKING LAMPSHADE OR ANYTHING? 

“He’s doing good, I think,” Crowley said. “Let’s show him the rest.”

“Okay, Frederick,” Aziraphale said, “there’s more. Crowley can change into something else, too.”

Frederick sighed dramatically, but looked up, interested in spite of himself. He watched, transfixed, as the big, feathered, Crowley-adjacent thing in front of him slowly morphed and dropped to the floor and became the absolutely _biggest_ snake he had ever seen in his life. 

Frederick’s entire brain short circuited and he did what any sensible snake would do faced with such an enormous threat – he went limp and played dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> .  
.  
Thank you for reading! I was just reading through various outtakes I have been pulling from different parts of the series when editing today and realized this one was almost finished, so here it is! :) I'm still coasting on the happiness of the engagement story and don't really feel like writing any more intense relationship stuff at the moment, so this seemed like a nice change of pace. 
> 
> I'm gonna say one more short chapter and this one is done, but you know how I get... Anyways, I hope you enjoy!


	2. Playing Dead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a small snake is determined to be faking his death, an angel's sleep is rudely disrupted, and Frederick makes peace with his new serpent friend.  
.  
.

\-------------------  


“What’s wrong with him?” Aziraphale shrieked as Frederick went limp in his hands. “Did he faint? Did he have a heart attack? Oh, Crowley, is he dead?” 

Crowley shifted back to human form, shaking his head clear from the unpleasantly quick transition, and knelt over to peer at the motionless snake. He picked him up and laid him on the coffee table where he could take a closer look. The angel, near hysterics, snapped and called down a beam of heavenly light to illuminate the snake more clearly. 

“No, I don’t think so,” the demon said after a moment. “He looks dead, but I feel like he’s breathing.”

“We broke him! We are the worst pet parents ever!” Aziraphale sobbed, clearly beginning to panic. His breath got faster and faster and he began to look unusually, frighteningly pale. 

“Angel!” Crowley growled, putting some demonic anger into his voice in order to firmly get Aziraphale’s attention. He took an insistent hold of his shoulders and kept his voice forceful. “Calm. Down. You are NOT going to faint on me, are you? Because so help me, if you leave me with two unconscious drama queens, I am NOT going to handle it well!”

It had the desired effect, he noted – Aziraphale looked startled, then embarrassed, and then attempted to settle down a little. He didn’t seem to trust himself to speak, but instead waved his hand in a sorry-please-go-ahead fashion and stared at Frederick, clearly trying to still his wobbling lower lip. 

“We did _not_ break him,” Crowley said consolingly, laying a hand on Aziraphale’s knee. “I think he’s just being a little dramatic.” 

Aziraphale frowned for a moment. “You mean…”

“Some snakes play dead when they face a big, overwhelming threat,” Crowley said. “Makes predators think they’ve been poisoned or something, so they won’t eat them. In this case, makes their owners feel bad. Either way, it’s a win for the snake.”

Aziraphale took a deep and calming breath and looked at Frederick consideringly. “He’s just scared,” he breathed, wonderingly. “I think I read about that in one of the snake books…”

“Fred, my friend,” Crowley cooed softly. “I’m _not_ going to eat you. Also, I know damn well you’re not dead.”

Frederick resolutely ignored them both and continued to do his best corpse impression.

“He won’t,” Aziraphale confirmed helpfully, “eat you, that is. I promise. He barely eats anything.” 

Crowley rolled his eyes at this super helpful interjection. 

“I wouldn’t eat you even if I _did_ eat. It’s just that when I was made, I was made a serpent in form, and something else on the inside” Crowley said. “Actually, I’m THE serpent. The first one in all the world.” He touched Frederick gently on his belly scales and petted him. “You were made in my image, so to speak.”

Frederick moved a tiny fraction of an inch. 

“Think of me as your big brother,” Crowley said. “At least, when I’m in that form. We can--” he scrambled for words, “--hang out. Do snake things.”

Aziraphale gave him a dubious look. Really? Hang out? 

Crowley mimed a shrug. What? I’m trying. 

Frederick lifted his head a half centimeter before flopping back down with his best dramatic shiver, but he snuck an appraising look at Crowley as he did so. 

“Oh, you melodramatic, manipulative little noodle,” Aziraphale said in intense relief, picking him up and holding him to his chest. “You’re fine. You know no one here is going to eat you.” 

Frederick sighed and slithered a tongue out, tentatively. 

I MIGHT FEEL BETTER IF SOMEONE WOULD GIVE ME A MOUSICLE, he thought. 

Crowley again frowned for a moment, then shook his head and hopped up to his feet. He headed back to the kitchen. “Let’s give him a mouse and let him take it out on something smaller than him. He just needs time to think it over.”

Frederick hissed in relief as they placed him back in his cage and began to work on swallowing his treat. At least he was bigger than _one_ creature in this strange place.

++

_Do I have wings?_ Frederick thought later that night. That would certainly even the playing field a little bit. If the huge snake had wings some of the time, he didn’t see why he shouldn’t be able to manifest some too. He curled up and concentrated as powerfully as he could, wriggling his back a little bit, and tried his hardest to make some big, black and red wings unfold out of his back. To his disappointment, nothing happened. No pop, no poof, no whoomph of air. 

He curled around and investigated his back. Just scales. Scales from tip to tail. 

Apparently, he thought disconcertedly, the fluffy one could be fluffy or could be a bird, the pointy one could be his usual pointy self or a bird _or_ a snake, which just seemed a little excessive and show-off-y now that he thought about it, and he, well he was just – just a small, black snake with no special powers. 

This hardly seemed fair. 

He settled down to sulk about it until morning. 

++

Crowley laid in bed that night unable to drift off. He turned to Aziraphale, who had gotten rather noticeably better at this sleeping thing all of a sudden, and reached over to gently fluff his pillow. Then he fluffed it a little harder. Then, when that failed to work, he pulled it out from underneath the angel entirely. 

“Wha-?” said Aziraphale, coming to rather quickly. 

“Oh?” Crowley said, the picture of innocence. “You’re up? Oh good.” 

Aziraphale frowned at him, not fooled in the least. “You needed something?” he said flatly.

“I was just wondering,” Crowley said, aware that he was about to sound a little crazy, “if you ever get the feeling that Frederick is trying to tell you something.”

Aziraphale blinked. “Well certainly, my dear. He communicates quite well with his coils and his posture and the state of his fangs and all the various noises and facial expressions he makes –”

“No, no,” Crowley said, “that’s not what I mean at all. I mean, I feel like he’s actually talking to me sometimes.”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said firmly, “you’ve been watching too much Harry Potter. Go to sleep. There’s no such thing as parseltongue.”

Crowley swatted Aziraphale’s arm semi-gently. “Very funny. But I’m serious. I’m starting to hear words sometimes when he looks at me.”

“Such as?”

“Well, today I had the strongest sensation that someone said ‘oh for fuck’s sake’ when you first told him I needed to show him something.” 

Aziraphale made a sound that was halfway between a snort and a laugh. “You must be imagining it! Besides, Frederick wouldn’t curse.”

Crowley fixed Aziraphale with a flat, disbelieving look. “Have you _met_ him?”

“All right, point conceded,” the angel said. “He is rather a grump. But honestly, is that possible?”

“I’m not sure,” Crowley said. “But it happened a couple times today.”

Aziraphale pulled Crowley into a loose hug. “We can experiment tomorrow and see. For now, will you please just go to sleep?”

Crowley let himself be lulled into the night, at least for a while. 

++

Crowley woke up early the next morning – well early for a demon, which was near lunch time for most of the rest of London. Nonetheless, it was early enough to feel almost virtuous, a thought that made him consider diving back under the covers for another hour or two. He managed to fight it off. He slithered into his clothes and headed down the stairs to see what mischief he could cause. 

Aziraphale was out, to his chagrin, but had left a note on the desk that he was attending to some business in Notting Hill and would be back after lunch. Crowley, with nothing better to do, pulled an armchair over into a sunny spot. He then gathered up Frederick’s reed basket, in which he was currently snoring, and sat down with the basket in his lap. 

“Oi, snake,” he said softly, “wake up.” 

Frederick roused himself with a hiss of surprise and then looked up at Crowley with a bit of alarm in his eyes. Sure, he was person-sized right now, but would he stay that way? He still wasn’t one hundred percent sure what he thought about all of this. His emotions were at war between worried and impressed, between fearful and intensely jealous. He stared at Crowley and kept his mind blank, flickering his tongue out nonchalantly to cover for his nerves. 

Crowley leaned down and fixed him with a gaze. “We okay, then, buddy? Still friends?” 

Frederick took a long moment to consider the pros and cons of various answers to that question. If he refused to be okay with Crowley, he’d probably get lots of extra attention from the fluffy one for a while. It would be lovely to be coddled and pampered and overindulged for a few weeks. Plus, it was always enjoyable to lord it over the pointy guy when _he_ was the one being petted and fussed over by Aziraphale. That was tempting, to be sure. 

However, if he made peace, he could gain the unique opportunity to hang out with a really, REALLY big snake. And, given certain assurances that no one was going to be eating anyone else, that could be pretty interesting. He could learn some things he didn’t know right now, like how to better bring down the next bird he tussled with, and what to do about the fact that his scales itched sometimes, and what it meant to be venomous versus poisonous. (Was he either? Frederick had no idea, so he blithely assumed he was both.) Plus, the pointy one obviously had some magical powers, after all, and who knew if he couldn’t fulfill Frederick’s fondest wish, if he so chose – for wings of his own? It was possible. 

Frederick steeled himself to act nicely for a moment. He uncoiled to the top rim of the basket, made eye contact with Crowley, and booped his hand with his forehead in a conciliatory manner. 

“All right, Frederick, good decision!” Crowley said, looking pleased. “Because you and I have a _lot_ to talk about.” 

++

When Aziraphale came home two hours later, he was startled to find not one but two snakes in his bookshop, curled up together by the right-hand shop window, angled exactly right to bring the sun directly down onto them, bathing their scales in a soft, golden glow. Crowley was pooled up in various loops on the armchair with a few hanging off of it down to the ground, and curled up in the midst of the pile was Frederick, happily snoring away with his head coiled over part of Crowley’s back and his eyes gently unfocused.

“Well I see you two made up,” Aziraphale said wryly, just to cover the way that his heart was almost bursting at the sight. 

Crowley-the-snake focused his gaze on him and hissed quietly. “S-s-s-s-sh,” he said. “He’s s-s-s-s-s-leeping.” 

“I can see that,” Aziraphale said, fondly. “You two are adorable.”

“Not adorable. We’re s-s-s-snakes.” 

“Ah, well,” Aziraphale said, “we’re going to have to disagree on that one.”

He leaned down and laid a kiss on the top of Crowley’s coils, cast one more fond look at his little Frederick happily snoring away with his new friend, and went off to put his things away. 

“No pictures-s-s-s-s,” Crowley called after him. “I mean it.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” Aziraphale replied airly, with absolutely no intention of adhering to that particular edict. This was, of course, too good to miss. He just needed to wait until they both settled back down again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh of COURSE I just changed it to three chapters instead of two. Because OF COURSE there's more. Heh. 
> 
> Chapter three is pretty much written, but I'm going to let it sit for a day or two so I can read it again fresh. Next chapter, of course, involves looking into exactly how much Frederick can communicate. I think you will like it. And just as a note, I can't believe how much time these Frederick chapters are making me spend looking up synonyms for words like "rude" and "smug." Heh.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading and please let me know what you think!


	3. If I Could Talk To The Animals

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which experiments are conducted into Frederick's communication skills, with surprising results.

.

“So,” Crowley said, later that afternoon, “should we try to see if Frederick is actually communicating with me?”

“Still thinking about that, then?” Aziraphale said, giving him an indulgent smile that made it all too clear that he still thought Crowley was hallucinating. 

“C’mon, angel, don’t be like that,” Crowley said, annoyed by the implied dismissal. “When do you know me to be – well, fanciful? Prone to imaginings?”

“Well, now,” Aziraphale said. “when you put it that way, I suppose I -- I apologize.” Privately, Aziraphale thought that both of those things – fanciful and imaginative -- could describe Crowley rather well at certain moments, although to be honest Crowley only appeared to be fanciful when it came to Aziraphale, so perhaps he had a point. 

“But really, dear,” the angel said, “how do we test it?”

Crowley had more than a few thoughts on that. First, he explained, they should test out Frederick’s ability to understand them. He laid out on the breakfast table a large piece of paper he’d worked up, with room for a snake in the center and the words YES and NO written in heavy black ink in the corners. Finally, he retrieved the little snake and put him in the center.

“Frederick,” he said, leaning down to eye level. “I want to ask you some questions. If you want to answer yes, move your tail to point at this part of the paper, and if you want to answer no, move your tail to that part of the paper.” Crowley demonstrated several times, pointing repeatedly at the words in question. 

Aziraphale, fascinated despite himself, pulled a chair up close to watch. The snake, looking rather dubious, looked back and forth between them and then all but shrugged as he decided to put up with whatever this was. 

“Right then, Freddie,” Crowley said. “First question. Are you a snake? Answer the question -- you can do it! Are you a snake?”

Frederick flicked his tongue out and looked affronted. Of course, he was a snake. He resolutely refused to move his tail even one millimeter in either direction. 

“Hrm. All right, do you like living here?” 

This also warranted no response. Although at the moment, the snake thought, the answer was edging towards a firm no.

Crowley huffed. He got the same lack of reaction on the next five or six questions, with Frederick refusing to move and looking increasingly bored by this whole affair. Crowley was intensely aware of Aziraphale watching him fail at this and, he suspected, beginning to look slightly embarrassed on his behalf, and he found his anger heating up because of it. 

“Okay, fine!” the demon snarled, plunking his head down on the table. “Go ahead and say it, one of you! This was a stupid, ridiculous, moronic idea and I’m a total idiot for thinking this could work!”

Frederick flicked his tongue and quite deliberately moved his tail to the word YES. 

“Crowley, look!” Aziraphale breathed. “He did it!”

Crowley lifted his head and narrowed his eyes at the snake. “Did you do that on purpose?” he asked.

Frederick rather insistently tapped his tail on the word YES again. 

“Oh for – for Satan’s sake, you are the most unhelpful, irritating little reptile I’ve ever met!” Crowley shouted. “Do you have any manners whatsoever?”

Frederick moved to tap his tail on the word NO.

If a snake could grin, Crowley thought, Frederick was clearly grinning smugly at him right now.

Aziraphale couldn’t help it, he burst out laughing. After a moment of Crowley staring at him in shocked offense, the demon’s lips twitched up in unwilling levity and he couldn’t help joining in. 

“Oh- oh – oh – “ Aziraphale wrapped his arms around his stomach and tried hard to get his breathing and his laughter under control. “Of course, Frederick will only communicate when there are insults to be given! How could we have expected anything less?”

They both couldn’t fail to notice the intensely self-satisfied expression on the face of the snake. 

“This is good, though,” Crowley said, calming down. “He can actually understand us and answer simple questions! At least, if and when he decides to.” 

Aziraphale’s eyes widened. “That’s rather remarkable, really. I’ve never heard of such a thing! I’m fairly certain your average pet shop snake can’t do anything of the sort.”

DO I LOOK LIKE YOUR AVERAGE PET SHOP SNAKE, YOU GIANT MUPPET? Frederick shrieked. 

Crowley whipped his head around and caught the snake’s eye. “What,” he said slowly and dangerously, “did you just say to him?”

Frederick looked at him cautiously and then decided to double down. YOU HEARD ME.

Crowley tried to look stern. “That is not at all polite!”

TAKES ONE TO KNOW ONE, YOU WANKER.

Crowley frowned. “Now you listen here –”

He was cut off when Aziraphale pushed back his chair dramatically and leapt to his feet. “All right, enough of this charade. What in the blazes is going on right now? You’re carrying on a one-sided argument and acting like he’s talking back to you and if this is all just some trick to put one over on me, I will not have it!” 

Crowley wagged a finger at Frederick. “See? Now you’ve upset him.”

Frederick gave him the snake equivalent of a raspberry.

“Crowley!!” Aziraphale all but shouted. He took a moment and visibly quieted himself down, tugging his cuffs back down into place and patting down his jacket. “Explain what’s happening, please.” 

Crowley reluctantly dragged his attention away from the snake and back to his partner. “Sorry, angel,” he said. “Wasn’t ignoring you, just got caught up. He’s talking to me, inside my head somehow. But it’s pretty much entirely put-downs and attitude.”

Aziraphale frowned. “You can hear him?”

“Not exactly, but – yeah. I think our pet is a little bit psychic,” he said, “and all-around rude.”

They both took a moment to absorb that, staring helplessly at each other. 

A thought occurred to Aziraphale. “What exactly did he say to me?” he asked.

Crowley mumbled something. 

“What was that?” 

“He – he called you a muppet, okay?” he said, his tone soft and apologetic. “If it makes you feel any better, he called me much worse.” 

Aziraphale’s eyes widened, and he thought it over. “Well, that’s really not so bad! Muppets bring joy to children all over the world. I suppose he can call me that if he needs to.” 

Crowley looked up, grinning, a comment on his lips –

“Only Frederick!” Aziraphale cut in sternly, “Don’t you even _think_ about it.”

Crowley obligingly let it drop, but he did file the nickname away for later. 

_An angel, a demon, and a slightly psychic, eternally rude, danger noodle_, Crowley thought. _How fitting_. But, really, it was just as well that Frederick was poorly behaved – he had as much of the compliments and general kindness and good behavior as any demon could handle just dealing with Aziraphale on a daily basis. If his pet were to add to the fray with endless loving comments and unwanted compliments, he thought he might just be driven over the edge into insanity. Better to have a snarky, disruptive, generally unpleasant beast who he knew, deep down, really liked him. Balance things out a bit.

Aziraphale sat back down and pulled up close to Frederick. “Can you talk to _me_?” he asked quietly. 

Frederick stared back at him consideringly, and then clenched his jaw a little bit and looked like he was concentrating hard. 

“Get anything?” Crowley asked. 

“No,” Aziraphale sighed, looking crestfallen, “Nothing at all. Did you?”

“Faintly,” Crowley said. “Not as clearly as when he’s yelling. I think he said hello.”

Aziraphale smiled and looked a little heartened by that. “Perhaps you can hear him because you share some of his snake DNA. Or he shares yours, I suppose,” he said. 

Frederick, looking a little sorrowful himself, gently moved his tail to YES. Honestly, he wished he could talk to the fluffy one. The fluffy one certainly talked to _him_ all the time; there were moments when it would be nice to answer back. 

But, he thought, his current situation was much improved over the prior day – yesterday he’d been sad to find he had no special powers, and today he had discovered he was psychic beyond the abilities of your average snake. He didn’t understand how that happened, but perhaps it came from living with two clearly supernatural entities? But either way, he was heartened by the news; it would surely come in useful. For a start, he could yell insults any time he liked at the pointy one and know for sure that they would land as intended, which was a highly entertaining prospect. And if he truly, truly wanted to, he supposed he could be bothered to be a reptilian Ouija board and answer yes/no questions from the fluffball. 

If doing so worked out in his favor, that is. He had a reputation to uphold. 

Educational mission completed for the day, Frederick curled up happily into a ball, right in the middle of the table, and drifted off to sleep with a small, reptilian smile on his face. Life was about to get interesting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's the end of this one! I hope you enjoyed it - I just reached the point today where I've read this so many times that I can't even tell how it is anymore. :) The opposite of writers block? Writers fatigue? Whatever gets you to hit publish, I suppose. :)
> 
> I don't have another one planned just yet but give me a few days of rest and relaxation and I will surely come up with something - this series isn't over yet. Also, if there's something you haven't seen yet in the series that you're dying to see please do leave me a note! I love working in your requests and ideas. 
> 
> Thank you to everyone who's been reading and leaving kudos and comments - your comments make me really happy and I love waking up to see who's responded the next morning after I post a story! 
> 
> (Anyone an artist? Cuz someone really ought to draw Frederick on his little yes/no placemat thing. Looking sullen, probably.)

**Author's Note:**

> Come visit me on tumblr at <http://ineffably-good.tumblr.com>
> 
> We have fan art! Thank you to the talented artists out there who have taken a minute to draw our little Frederick. I welcome any and all contributions!
> 
> 1) @rocketbeagle did a drawing of Frederick the snake! I love it. Go like their pic of : [Frederick curled around Crowley's neck](https://rocketbeagle.tumblr.com/post/186197588881/Frederick).
> 
> 2) Also from @rocketbeagle: [a full portrait of Frederick! ](https://rocketbeagle.tumblr.com/post/186339285825/have-another-frederick-uvu-from-ineffably-goods)
> 
> 3) From @akinmytua2, [this great pic of Frederick curled up in the sun on a bookshop chair.](https://akinmytua2.tumblr.com/post/187453068510/kodachrome-was-because-you-move-me-chapter-1)
> 
> 4) Also from @akinmytua2, this gorgeous view of :  
[ Frederick in the messenger bag from London Calling, right before he sneaks out to eat the bird](https://akinmytua2.tumblr.com/post/187743485645/london-calling-chapter-1-megzseattle-good)


End file.
